making it up as I go along…literally

Maggie Steifvater

I know, I know…it’s March. I’m very late with this post. In my defence…well, nothing really. I was in a bit of a blogging funk at the start of the year, so never got round to sharing the books I read last year. But here they all are:

The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak

Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier

Gypsy Boy by Mikey Walsh

Heft by Liz Moore

How Eskimos keep their babies warm by Mei-Ling Hopgood

The Crimson petal and the white by Michel Faber

Complete Write a Novel Course by Will Buckingham

Public Library by Ali Smith

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

The Taxidermist’s Daughter by Kate Mosse

The Masked City by Genevieve Cogman

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Steifvater

Every Day by David Levithan

Ash by Malinda Lo

The Good Children by Roopa Farooki

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier

Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor

Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin

The Raven Boys by Maggie Steifvater

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Steifvater

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Steifvater

The Raven King by Maggie Steifvater

Hood by Stephen R Lawhead

Cunning Folk- Popular Magic in English History by Owen Davies

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

Half Bad by Sally Green

Half Wild by Sally Green

Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas

Hemingway in Love by A.E. Hotchner

Now is the time by Melvyn Bragg

Murder at the Old Vicarage by Jill McGown

Half Lost by Sally Green

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

That’s actually considerably less than the 47 books I read in 2015, but this year I read a lot more *new* books, that I hadn’t previously read- only two of those listed above were re-reads. For those who like their stats, out of the 39-

4 I didn’t actually finish (but a couple of those I will likely get back to at some point)

7 were non-fiction (that’s a lot more non-fic than I normally read, the sudden increase was thanks to NOVEL RESEARCH)

25 were library books (working in libraries has some major perks 😉 )

1 I read on Kindle (a massive decrease from 2015, but then again, I did start working in a library in 2016, so I guess that was to be expected?)

Some new favourites include Frenchman’s Creek- oh my god, I still cannot believe I hadn’t read this one of Daphne Du Maurier’s books before now. Rebecca has (obviously) long since been a favourite of mine, but wow, Frenchman’s Creek has very nearly, almost- possibly overtaken it. I literally swooned, and then once revived proceeded to fill my ‘bookish quotes’ notebook with basically every single passage. I LOVED it. In fact, just thinking about it now is making me want to read it again.

I also fell in love with Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd, and The Scorpio Races by Maggie Steifvater. In terms of non-fiction, both Gypsy Boy (a fantastic, unflinching memoir by Mikey Walsh) and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty were incredible.

Honestly, out of the 39 books there really weren’t many (aside from the ones I didn’t manage to finish), that I *didn’t* enjoy this year. For me, The Half Bad trilogy fell short of my expectations, but only because the ending was SO CRUEL, and I was pissed off about it for days, literally. The Paying Guests was a bit depressing, but generally everything else I read I liked, and there are quite a few that I’m tempted to revisit again this year.

At the end of 2015, after completing my ‘great re-read of 2015‘ I hinted at a new challenge for 2016, but then that never actually got off the ground. The challenge was going to be classics. There are so many books that would be considered classics that I haven’t read, so I was planning to ask people I know IRL, and of course, you lovely lot- if you had any suggestions on where I should start. But then life happened, and I never got round to it.

I honestly feel like it’s a bit late to be setting myself a reading challenge for 2017, given as we’re almost a quarter of the way through it already, but if there is a classic book that you think I should add to my list then please do leave a comment and I’ll let you know if I’ve already read it or not (chances are higher that I won’t have, I may be a prolific reader, but I lost a lot of years to Point Horror and Sweet Valley High, and honestly I have no regrets about that.)

As for 2017- well so far I’ve read eleven brilliant books, and I have a massive stack of unread books on my shelves to work through, not to mention about twenty unread books downloaded to my kindle, and of course all the books I have access to across the library service…so yeah, I have a feeling it’s going to be a good reading year!